Bottom of the Bottle
by banishing gun
Summary: Reno POV, Reminiscence of when he pushed the button and destroyed sector 7 but with an added twist. Things are only going downhill for the Turk. Rated for angst and death, mention of same sex relationships.


_One day I swear I'll write somthing nice for poor Reno. I have some Cloud x Reno in the pipeline if that's any kind of solace._

_Though I like to think I own him I'm sure Square Enix have other idea's so yeah he belongs to them._

I slam my money down on the bar top, pushing it through a sticky puddle of swiftly drying alcohol and towards the tender, anything to keep the alcohol flowing

I slam my money down on the bar top, pushing it through a sticky puddle of swiftly drying alcohol and towards the tender, anything to keep the alcohol flowing. I haven't drunk enough yet, sometimes it feels like I can't ever drink enough. It don't matter if I drink so much I pass out and wake up the next day smelling like an alley with a crumpled suit an' sore throat or if I wind up heaving my guts out.

Sometimes it's still never enough. I know I haven't had enough yet tonight cause' I can still feel his fingers on my skin. I down a shot before gathering up the tray of kamikaze's and heading back to my table. It just one of my eccentricities, I won't drink at the bar when I drink to get drunk, and nowadays that's all I ever seem to do.

If I have a table I can lie to myself and say it makes me look less like the notorious drunk I've become. The walk to the bar helps me gauge my drunkenness anyway, one more bottle or two? A bitter laugh cuts through the chatter of the bar and I only realize slowly that it's mine. I see people flinch, sense them listening, no one will interfere though. You don't mess with a Turk.

Of course I'm still a Turk, what the fuck else could I do? I'm still a good Turk too, one of the best. I may not look so good these days, my hair a mess, suit even more disheveled than in the past, dark circles under my eyes, skin sallow from too much drinking but I can still fight.

Day after day I turn up at work, ignoring the hangover with practiced ease as I file paperwork or pilot the chopper. They watch me deteriorate before their eyes but they do nothing, they know I'd only lash out at them if they tried to help. They can't help.

Rufus likes to fuck me from time to time and I let him because it's a distraction and he's hot. There's not really time to dwell on the past or future when you're being screwed into the mattress so hard your brains revolving inside your skull. I can pretend for a short while that the hands caressing my skin are his and his alone. It's freedom of a sort.

That's what I crave, freedom. Nothingness, a bland existence free from the constant prickling of my own skin. I want to forget, to kill myself would be too easy, would cheapen his memory somehow. I sigh, knocking back another couple of Kamikaze's. I've got it real bad tonight. I stick a cigarette between my lips, fumbling with the lighter before I eventually get that first bittersweet drag.

I loved him, truly loved him. It wasn't just infatuation or lust, it was love. I don't give a shit about people who say I was too young. I care even less for those who don't believe I'm capable of such an emotion. Too many people say I'm shallow, they get it wrong yo. I'm not shallow I'm empty. There's a difference.

He died the day I dropped the plate on sector 7. Hardly my best moment, murdering hundreds of innocents for the fucked up cause of a company gone insane. Such a tragic waste of human life, such an abuse of power. I was only following orders, that's what I tell myself but I stopped believing that a long time ago.

I felt shitty after the fight on top of the pillar. Not just my aching body but the knowledge of what I'd done. I was hurt pretty bad, had to spend some time in the hospital, watch that kid Elena take my place. I was so drugged up on painkillers and God knows what else ShinRa administered me with that I barely considered why he hadn't visited, I wasn't really even with it enough to appreciate he hadn't turned up, just an emptiness.

On the third day my medication was cut back and I regained some lucidity, and my cell phone. There was only one message. 'Reno, I'm going for a drink at 7th heaven, meet me there when you finish work. I love you'.

My stomach dropped and I felt a cold dread seep through my heart. I guess dreads the wrong word, it wasn't fear that hit me but certainty, the rock solid knowledge that he was dead, that I'd killed him. I still carry that dead weight inside me, I always will.

What could I do? Go to the authorities? I _am_ the fuckin' authorities. 'Excuse me Mister President sir, I followed your orders and destroyed a densely populated slum…I think I killed someone'.

I down the last of the shots and tilt forward, balance and conscious slipping as I fold onto the floor. The scuffed wooden boards the closest I get to an embrace these days bar the feather light touch of his hands haunting me. I know its all in my head but at the end of the day, its not like I can move out.


End file.
